The present invention relates to a method of producing a dry earthworm powder effective in treatment of various diseases, by removing the dirt in digestive tracts and on the skin of the earthworms without deterioration in the pharmacological action inherent to the earthworms.
Earthworms have been used from ancient times in oriental countries as drugs for prevention and treatment of various diseases, and have found applications such as intracystic calculus-contraction and releasing-stimulating agent, anti-choloplania agent, parturifacient, tonic, hair growth tonic, pickup, antifebrile, spasm-treating agent, blood flow accelerator, hemiplegia-treating agent, indirect analgesic, urination improving agent, anti-bronchial asthma agent, anti-hypertension agent and others.
It is necessary to remove the digest of an earthworm remaining in the digestive tracts, the dirt on the skin, and others for production of a medicine for oral administration by using the living body of the earthworm as the raw material, and various methods for that purpose have been proposed.
Examples thereof so far proposed include methods of producing a dry earthworm powder useful as an anti-diabetes agent, anti-hyperlipidemia agent, or blood pressure-adjusting agent, by immersing living bodies of earthworms in an aqueous solution of an alkali salt such as sodium salt or potassium salt, allowing them to excrete the cast in the digestive tracts, wet-grinding the earthworms, and freeze-drying the suspension thus obtained under vacuum (JP1-47718A, JP1-47719A, JP1-47720A and JP1-268639A), and a method of producing a medicine for patients with thrombosis, by immersing living bodies of earthworms in an aqueous acid solution kept at 6 to 26° C. for 0.1 to 5 hours, allowing them to excrete the cast in the digestive tracts, grinding the earthworms, degassing the homogenate, and vacuum-drying the homogenate, while the temperature is raised stepwise (JP3-72427A).
However, immersion of living bodies of earthworms in an aqueous alkali salt or acid solution for an extended period of time leads to weakening of the earthworms, consequently to denaturation of the proteins contained in the body, deterioration in enzyme activities and also in the pharmacological action of the earthworm powder obtained.